Christy Hayes a Hall of Fame football coach

Trumbull Times

Published
4:46 pm EDT, Tuesday, August 12, 2014

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Six coaches, two athletic directors, a legendary Connecticut athlete and one media member will be honored as 2014 inductees to the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame at its 38th annual ceremony on Nov. 20, at the Aqua Turf in Southington at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the dinner are $46 and available in advance by contacting the CHSCA office at P.O. Box 632, Southington, CT 06487 or by calling 860-628-4122 or e-mailing John Fontana at jfontana01@snet.net. Doors open at 6 p.m.

Christy Hayes

Hayes won five Class S football titles while at St. Joseph High School in Trumbull from 1983-1997, after spending 10 years as an assistant at the school. He also won a state title in girls basketball in 1979 and recorded 150 victories, and won an FCIAC baseball title in 1997. As an athletic director at Wilton High School from 2002-2013 he supervised a program that won 21 state championships. He was inducted into the FCIAC Hall of Fame in 2011.

Debbie Petruzzello

Petruzzello started the girls outdoor track and field program at Woodrow Wilson High School in Middletown in 1977, then became head coach at Middletown when the schools merged in 1985. She has recorded 248 coaching victories, one Class S title and two Class runner-up finishes. She was honored as CHSCA girls track Coach of the Year in 2008.

Kathy Walling

Walling has coached lacrosse for 17 years and field hockey for 13 at Hall High School in West Hartford. She has 451 total coaching victories, which includes three other sports. Her teams have won six league titles in three sports. She was named CHSCA field hockey Coach of the Year in 2002.

Brian Crudden

Crudden coached football and wrestling, as well as boys track, at Windham High School beginning in 1977. He has 526 total coaching victories, 371 in wrestling, in which his teams won seven state championships and finished second six times. His football teams have two state runner-up finishes, and he has a combined 15 league titles in both sports. He was named CHSCA wrestling Coach of the Year in 1993 and football Coach of Year in 2011.

William Mongovan

Mongovan coached indoor track, cross country and girls track and field at Greenwich and St. Mary’s (Greenwich) High Schools for 48 years. He recorded 431 cross country victories and had a total of 731 coaching victories overall. He was inducted into the FCIAC Hall of Fame in 2005, and has been active in international athletics as a coach and Special Olympics as a chair of the World Games in New Haven.

Marce Petroccio

Petroccio has coached football at Staples High School since 1993, winning three state championships and having five state runner-up finishes. His coaching record is 183-56. His teams have reached the state semifinals 10 times and he has three FCIAC championships as well as six division titles. He was named FCIAC Coach of the Year five times and CHSCA Outstanding Football Coach in 2007-08.

Joseph Canzanella

Canzanella is the athletic director and supervisor of all city sports for New Haven, a program that includes 46 schools and the Floyd Little Athletic Center, home to many state-wide events. He has also been an assistant coach in six sports and created and is director of New Haven Unified Sports. During his tenure since 1999, city schools have won 73 state titles. He has also been a basketball official for 31 seasons, and was named CHSCA Athletic Director of the Year in 2013.

Paul Mengold

Mengold was athletic director at Amity High School for 30 years, during which he expanded the program from 35 to 78 teams, oversaw a major upgrade to the school’s athletic complex and teams won 45 state championships and 122 league titles. Amity also won the Michael’s Achievement Cup twice in his tenure. He has been a CAAD executive board member since 1990.

Ed Poscavage

Poscavage was an All-State football player at Naugatuck High School and record-breaking swimmer for the YMCA in the 1930s. He was state backstroke champion breaking state records on consecutive days in 1936 at Yale. He attended Ohio State University, where he was part of the Buckeyes Big Ten Championship team and runner-up NCAA squad. He also played water polo and was head coach as a student.

He played for the Canadian military football team, the Toronto RCAF Hurricanes, who won Canada’s Grey Cup in 1942. He was a fighter pilot for the Canadian RCAF and the U.S. Army during World War II, flying 13 combat missions. He died in combat when shot down on a bombing mission over Gersheim, Germany in 1945 and was buried at Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial in France.

Tom Yantz

Yantz has been a sports reporter at The Hartford Courant since 1975, covering high school, colleges and professional sports. He has served as Yale football and Boston Red Sox beat reporter, and covered Major League Baseball from 1982-2008. He has also covered professional golf at TPC River Highlands and Central Connecticut basketball from 2000-2008. He has numerous writing awards, including two Associated Press First Place Enterprise Reporting honors, a First Place Sports Story award from the New England AP, and first place awards from the Connecticut Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.